BEVERLY HILLS, April 22, (THEWILL) – Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, Governor Kayode Fayemi has suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to spread to all states of the country.
Fayemi, who is also the Governor of Ekiti State, made the remark in a Skype interview on Channels TV.
“From everything we’ve heard from NCDC, which is the specialist body in charge, there is nothing to suggest that it would not spread to all the 36 states,” he said.
“We are very concerned. If you look at the number of times we met over the last one month. We’ve had five meetings which focused almost exclusively on COVID-19 and its spread and the concomitant economic effects on the Nigerian citizens.
“I don’t think we have reached the peak yet. So, Nigerians need to take this very seriously. This is not entertainment.
“The (testing) capacity in Ekiti State is Zero. We don’t have any testing capacity. When we have a suspected case, we send the sample to Ede which is the closest place to us here. We’ve just done so for the almost 70 contacts that the last case we had in Ekiti had been in contact with.”
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According to the governor, sometimes, samples from suspected cases are sent to Abuja. He, however, explained that the Governors Forum was working with the NCDC and with the support of private sector players to convert machines used to test for tuberculosis to COVID-19 testing machines.
In addition to this move, he said the NCDC is trying to ramp up the number of testing centres in the country.
“For now, it is true that we are not testing enough,” he said. “There have been only about 8,000 tests from the record of the NCDC. If we have only 8,000 tests and we already have over 600, almost 700, of them testing positive, if you extrapolate from that, it is a worrisome number.”
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